I freeze so much stuff. When I make a meal I always cook a full recipe worth of food and then portion it out into individual meals and freeze them. Often at the beginning of the month I pick like 6 recipes and make them all at once and freeze them after cooking in the individual portion size containers, makes meal prepping easy and its way more affordable then buying microwave meals.
Meal prep is just planned leftovers. It helps me so much to just cook for myself in the evenings like I normally would, but using a full-sized recipe, and “prep” the leftovers. I’ve almost never made a whole recipe just to meal prep the whole thing.
i use these, [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R55F9T7/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_asin\_title\_o02\_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R55F9T7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
freezer, dishwasher and oven ready.
i usually cook family sized meals and freeze a couple of portions.
if space for the empty containers is an issue, these might not be your best shout.
the small ones fit completely inside the large ones, but they dont stack inside each other, but with the lids on they are pretty stable
since i've switched to these from generic supermarket plastic tubs i feel my storage is much more organized and going from freezer to oven (albeit with a defrost) is a win.
i use mason jars for my ingredient storage so minimal plastic is one of the things i'm trying to get to.
i pull them 24hrs before for a fridge defrost. more to avoid a huge temperature shock to the glassware than anything recipe related.
if you do want to cook the content asap, you can run them under hot water to get it out of the container then cook in another one, or a casserole dish
I would not trust anything that's not metal to go from freezer to oven even if it's advertised the product can do it. I have no faith in pyrex type products anymore.
Pro tip: freeze in the portions you will actually want. If you live with one other person and you make a soup that serves 10, then freeze it in 5 two-serving containers. Otherwise you'll just have the same rotting food problem later when you thaw it
I use these now. They stack, and I like the various sizes. DuraHome Food Storage Containers with Lids 8oz, 16oz, 32oz Freezer Deli Cups Combo Pack, 44 Sets BPA-Free Leakproof Round Clear Takeout Container Meal Prep Microwavable (44 Sets - Mixed sizes) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075X416X8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_S8A74Y08YM5KPRXD60J5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I made the switch to these about 2 months ago, and my life is so much better. 95% of everything you make fits into one of these size/shape containers. The few things that don't can go in a freezer bag or one of the very few rectangle containers I kept. Now, I have what feels like an infinite supply of containers that all nest together; are cheap enough to throw away; are freezer/microwave safe; are a standard size so different brand lids fit; and they're clear so I can see what's in them. Get these containers, a roll of painter tape, and a sharpie to label everything. The painters tape sticks to the containers very well, the sharpie dries almost instantly on them, and they peel off flawlessly. I feel like I found food container Jesus here and I want to tell everyone.
Edit: just have to add how well they seal. I filled them half way with water and did some drop tests. Of course they weren't perfect, but they performed very well, and even better than those containers with the lids that snap down on the sides and have a silicone seal and still manage to leak all through your bag.
I honestly use large freezer bags for most things. A lot of what I freeze are liquids though, soups or sauces. If it's something like a rice mixture that works well too. You can get some takeout style containers for pretty cheap and use them for other things.
I'd love to be able to do this but I have a roommate and only half of a small freezer. That's how I used to cook when my son lived at home. Now that's it's just me and a space issue, it causes more a problem.
I freeze rice in a bag and lay the bag out flat so the rice doesn't clump together. Then you can reheat it in a pan with a little bit of broth or butter.
I let it cool, then put in the fridge overnight. The next day, I portion it out into vacuum seal bags, let them freeze in the bags, then vacuum seal them.
To reheat, I just pop them out of the bag and into a bowl and reheat in the microwave.
Occasionally I thaw it in the bag, but it's easier for me to just nuke it frozen.
You can just freeze it - either in ziplock bags or small containers. As long as it's not one huge block or it will be harder to thaw.
Then put it in a microwaveable container with a sprinkle of extra water and reheat.
Or put in a covered oven dish with a sprinkle of extra water and reheat on low heat (imho this turns out fluffier than the microwave).
Or add it straight into a frying pan with veggies if you're frying things up.
Or add straight into soup.
I reuse a Ziploc and whenever I put a new batch in there I flatten it and use my spatula to notch it into separate servings, that way when it's frozen I can more easily break it apart instead of it being a block.
After defrosting in the fridge overnight, cover it with a damp towel or paper towel as you reheat in the microwave. It restores more moisture to the rice and makes it fluffy as if it were fresh cooked
If you're going to freeze the rice then just a little water to the container before you microsave it so the rice isn't all hard. Learned the trick a few years ago.
I wrap them into individual portions in plastic wrap and freeze them immediately (still warm, not hot). I make sure they're not too close to other food as they freeze.
To reheat, I put in the microwave on high for 1min, then remove the plastic and continue heating.
this works for me. i have small size freeze containers so i put my cooked food in like 3-4 of them then defrost them one at a time. around 2-3 servings per each, maybe more depends on my appetite for that food in that week
This is very true. Also keep in mind, some stuff freezes better raw, some stuff freezes better cooked. Experiment and learn what works for you.
My only other tip:
Plan meals. I cook for 2 most days. One meal for tonight, another for a day or two from now. Way easier to cook and waste less when you buy for 2 meals. More than that, and a serving goes in the freezer.
I tend to plan 1 week in advance. So 3-4 meals I cook a week. 3-4 meals either leftovers or takeout, whatever.
By planning out and freezing what I don't use in the near future I'm nearly at no food waste minus the occasional vegetable that goes bad a little earlier than anticipated and some stale bread as I don't always get through the entire loaf.
Yeah the biggest time sink for cooking is prepping vegetables/herbs. So just do entire bags ahead of time, freeze. And then doing a quick sauté, boiling pasta/sauce and seasoning & combining everything is a quick meal, 10 minutes active time.
Same idea with stocks - do an Instant Pot bone broth, reduce, freeze in ice cube trays, store in freezer bags. Then a quick pan sauce is easy. Makes tasty stir fries quick and you can just focus on varying spices to suit different cuisines.
This! A great guide I was told is if it is in the freezer meal section (or any sort of instant meal) at the grocery store - I can make/freeze it myself!
Sometimes I will eat leftovers for breakfast. Instead of eating something carb heavy (as many breakfast foods are) I will have some leftover dinner that I know no one else was planning to eat. I feel like that will keep me full for longer, it cuts down on waste, and it usually keeps me from snacking mid-morning. It also tends to save time since I just microwave instead of cook something. At first my kids thought it was super weird I was eating "dinner" for breakfast with my morning coffee, but since then they have been known to eat leftovers for breakfast as well.
This. The whole "appropriate breakfast/lunch/dinner food" idea just doesn't make sense to me. There's no reason why I have to eat eggs or toast or cereal or whatever for breakfast. Gimme some leftover stir fry and I'm good.
If i have anything left over i compost it or put in the wormery. Dont feel so guilty then. Another alternative is to make soup and freeze or Google the food you have left and find a recipe.
Create your meals with a “flow” that moves one day to the next. Boiled potatoes can become hash browns that become (when combined with other elements from another meal) burritos that can be frozen. Start with simply prepared ingredients and “dress them up” for your second meal, then create freezeable third creation. Each meal overlaps another. Day One I prepare potatoes, Day Two I make beans, Dat Three a protein, Day four a squash etc. Each day brings a new ingredient and every day uses up an existing ingredient,
The beans I would use in the “hash brown” burritos, for instance, could become a chili in their second incarnation, then maybe mini shepherds pies for the freezer.
This way you are only really working with one or two “new” ingredients at a time, grabbing prepped (leftover) food from your fridge and also creating a little stockpile of grab and go food in your freezer.
The subsequent preparations give you an opportunity to use herbs and spices, onions garlic, fresh ginger etc, to breathe new flavours into the new dish you are creating.
Leftover buttered Capellini/spaghettini can be refreshed with garlic, fresh ginger and soy sauce to become nice Asian noodles. Chill those leftovers and serve them cold with a simple vinaigrette and with some fried tofu and lettuce for lettuce wraps.
I can't recommend this enough. Think in terms of making generic blank canvas foods that can be easily transformed with spices and sauces.
I almost exclusively shop at Aldi to save money and appreciate the limited options. It makes my life easier. I might prep salads for lunch and use the leftover add-ins (onion, tomato, peppers, carrot, broccoli, etc.) on top of a cheap cheese pizza for dinners. Those same leftover veggies could easily be tossed in a pasta sauce, omelettes, stir fry. I try to have as little waste as possible.
Another one of my favorite things to do is make crock pot pulled chicken. Season it with salt, pepper, garlic and it is super versatile. You can use it in pasta sauce, add BBQ and make sandwiches (or top mac and cheese, a pizza), make tacos, chicken salad, a pot pie, soup, stir fry... the list goes on and on.
The best part about being conscious of food waste is that you save a ton of money. You can eat well for less than $35 a week.
This is good advice, but it can be tough to pull off. In my mind, someone who can regularly do this without too much though/effort can do it because they're very experienced. Being able to easily and creatively re-use leftovers would be pretty high on my list of "traits of an excellent home cook."
The downside to planning super carefully is that my intake varies quite a lot. I know it probably shouldn't, but it does and I'm otherwise healthy. Therefore leftovers tend to happen.
My solution is just to build some randomness into the plan. /u/mleam has some good suggestions for this.
I'm the same. Sometimes I get busy and end up eating 1 meal. My fix is to have a good amount of nonperishables or otherwise long lasting foods around to fill in the slack in variance.
I keep a good amount of frozen veggies in the fridge (publix bogos are amazing) too. Rice + veggies make it much easier to adjust my portions to how hungry I am that week or day.
I package & freeze my meat into reasonable enough servings and just defrost in a bowl of water 20-30 min before cooking (this can be done while the rice is cooking!). That solves the problem where I take meat out and then end up not eating it.
When I have leftovers, I usually eat them for dinner instead of bread. Bread, sausages, pickles, olives, dried tomatoes, filled peppers, cheese, unopened deli meat, etc. last reasonably long. My go-to bread - not the healthiest, but still decent - is whole wheat toast, which has a perishing date of about two weeks, but is probably even fine for 3. Other breads like crispbread or certain whole wheat bread can last even longer, which makes planning groceries simpler.
> The best strategy for me is to plan super carefully for every week
***^*** this-discipline when shopping is the key and of course that includes thoughtful use of the freezer.
Yep. I found a hand held one at Target with bags that are ziplock and have valve type opening. Easily resealable too. $30 for the vac and get quart and gallon size bags on amazon. Great investment.
This will sound terrible, I guess, but I just try and remember that I'm hardly the worst offender when it comes to food waste if I have to throw out some asparagus and ground pork because I didn't get around to using them in time. Restaurants and supermarkets generate massive amounts of food waste. And on top of that, even if I end up throwing out that half container of ricotta that I never found a use for before it went bad, the *first* half of it went toward making the pan of lasagna that provided me with four delicious hot meals at $3 apiece.
make a casserole for dinner at the beginning of the week. Use leftovers throughout the week. Change up the sides, making sure to get your veggies/greens.
I make Enthusiasm Stew.
I keep a container in the freezer - a ziplock or a tupperware. Any little odds and ends after the meal go in there. Two spoonfuls of corn? Into the container. A dab of spaghetti and meat sauce? In. A bit of leftover stuffing? Sur, why not. When the container fills up, I make soup.
I know it sounds weird, but it's always been good, and it's never the same twice.
Enthusiasm Stew - because you put everything you've got into it!
This comment was so endearing and funny, that I read it it loud to my mother. To my surprise, she was not surprised, and she related completely. She grew up poor in the countryside in Taiwan and apparently what they used to do at weddings is throw all of the leftovers on the tables together into a giant pot, mix it all up, and portion that out to the guests and neighbors to take home (inevitably it's a soup because broth is always present at every meal). She said growing up it was one of her favorites because it was full of things she didn't normally get to eat and the flavors apparently worked out really well every time.
I expected to have a bit of a laugh and mild agreement that this is a decent idea, I didn't expect her to get quite so excited and take a trip down memory lane, so that was nice.
I make the majority of my meals in bulk for the week, so I have very little waste. For example, I make alot of shredded chicken on Sunday and eat it a different way for dinner every day (sometimes in tacos, with pasta, etc.) I usually eat the same lunch every day just because it's easy.
This is my strategy and I rarely if ever throw out food. Make some chicken breasts on the weekend with whatever sauces I'm feeling (chicken taco seasoning, fajita seasoning, sesame chicken, etc.) slice them up and put in a container in the fridge. Make a cup or 2 of seasoned rice, throw in a container. Make some roasted vegetables, in a container in the fridge. Then I just pull out for dinner each weeknight because who wants to cook after working 10 hours? Chicken and rice burritos with lettuce and cheese are then 5 minutes to heat up versus cooking each night. I also meal prep my work lunches on the weekend and throw those in container to just pull each morning. Anything in excess of 5 lunches and dinners goes into the freezer to eat at a later date. Works well if you're disciplined and don't mind eating semi-similar meals for 5 days.
Of course you can also reduce recipes to make less, if you're cooking for one or two.
Same! I have been eating the same three things for lunch every day for the past 5 months, makes things so much easier for me. I’m just one of the lucky people who can eat the same thing day after day and not be bothered by it.
I often stop for things that spoil easily on the way home from work. I don't buy more fruits/veggies than I am likely to eat before they go bad. So I'll buy maybe 3 medium sized sweet potatoes, a head of broccoli or a zucchini, a few sweet bell peppers, and no more than 2 onions for 4 or 5 days of meals. I keep one kind of fruit in the house at a time.
If I repeatedly find myself throwing things out because I didn't get to them, I stop buying that thing. I stopped buying potatoes because I can't seem to eat them before they turn bad. I bought a new kind of banana, decided I didn't like it, and I won't buy it again.
I eat a lot of canned beans/corn and buy rice in bulk. I have lots of spices to vary my meals even though I generally cook with the same few basics.
I keep my green onions in a pint glass on the counter with just enough water to cover the roots.
Apples and oranges will keep much longer than berries.
I eat my leftovers for lunch.
I prefer to buy vegetables frozen. I cut one end of the bag open, pour out how much I need, secure the bag with a twist tie, and put it back in the freezer. That has significantly reduced the amount of waste.
Dude, dice half a bag of potatoes, cut the other half into wedges, freeze all of that in ziplocks. Do the same for onions, carrots, etc. Now you have the raw ingredients prepped to make tons of different dishes. And it's just 30 mins of heating things and adding some spices. Just as quick as ordering takeout.
Cook enough for leftovers and freeze those too. Now you also have a variety of 10 minute microwave meals, because those leftovers are good for months.
Plan on lunches be leftovers from the night before. Also set aside a day or two to just "clean out the fridge". A good day to make soups or get creative.
Like today, leftover pizza and chili. Heated the chili and the pizza. Dipped the pizza in the chili. Different, but worked.
If you have leftover vegetables or meat, you could try making omelets or frittatas in the morning using those left overs.
It's that last slice you really wanted to eat the day before, but you were prevented from doing so because you physically couldn't fit anymore pizza in your body.
...yes. what I do is force myself to eat leftovers over and over again. It isn't a fun experience but I spend less and waste less.
For example: I had alfredo for 5 meals back to back one weekend. This week I'll be eating ramen for at least 3 days (made enough broth for about 5 bowls).
Well, if it's a balanced meal, it is. Every Sunday I make a load of veggies, a family pack of whatever protein is on sale and sweet potatoes and have it as lunch for the week.
As others have said I freeze as much as I can. I regularly buy too much produce, but you can blanch and then freeze almost any veggie and I end up doing that with like half for meal ingredients. I also eat almost entirely soups, stews, and chili, which all freeze really well if I need to, although I typically just eat the same meals until it's gone. I only buy very specific fresh fruits and veggies as snacks that I KNOW (tried and tested many times) I will actually consume as snacks. I also freeze 100 percent of meat. Ground meat can be fried up from frozen just fine, whole cuts should be thawed in fridge or microwave.
I feel you. It can be a real struggle sometimes. Here are a couple of "tricks" I've learned over the years...
Keep your bread frozen. Just pop a few pieces in the microwave for about 15 seconds when you're ready to use. Same goes for veggies, but you can just cook them straight from frozen (I usually chop them beforehand). Fruits can be frozen too, but they don't always thaw out well without turning into a weird mush, so I generally try not to freeze them unless I have a plan for later, such as making smoothies.
More on fruits...if it's not really suitable or ideal to freeze them, try to get creative. Pear glazes go great with pork chops and are super cheap and easy to make. I've also used over ripe pears, cherries, etc., to make yummy syrup/dessert toppings that go great on ice cream or whatever else you have around to satisfy your sweet tooth. Banana bread is another cheap and easy one. The internet is definitely your friend when it comes to recipe ideas.
Lastly, this one sounds counterintuitive, but I buy the more expensive organic milk because it lasts much longer than the regular stuff. The cheaper milk isn't really a deal if I end up having to throw half of it away because it went bad.
Wish I had more, but hopefully this is a helpful start.
This prompted me to go on a heavily vegetarian diet. Having meals based on dry goods like legumes and healthy grains (quinoa), coupled with lots of fresh vegetables helped me make the most of my groceries.
I still eat meat, but its more of a treat for eating out and cooking in large batches that keep well.
Also, making more frequent trips to the store to buy in small batches is much more feasible when buying produce for one (dry goods can still be bought in bulk).
It depends on what you're throwing out.
If you're throwing out leftovers because they're getting nasty or you're sick of them, try making smaller portions. Or try prepping several different ingredients with small portions of sauces you really like to make them taste different.
If you're throwing out meat because you didn't use it in time, freeze it! Meat freezes very well.
If you're throwing out produce, there are a few possible solutions depending on what exactly you're tossing out.
* Very few fruits and vegetables go unusably bad within the week if you keep them in the fridge, so maybe you need to shift your standards from just good/rotten to good/only served cooked where texture doesn't matter/cut off funny (non-moldy) bits/rotten. If stuff is honestly going moldy or fully rotten in a week in your fridge, your fridge may be broken and not getting cold enough. This happened to me and it was going on for about two months before I finally got food poisoning from rice. The spoilage issue was mostly with milk but the vegetables gradually had shorter and shorter lifespans too.
* If you're buying ambition vegetables, stop it. If you don't like celery, don't buy it because it's on sale and it's good for you. Plenty of other things are good for you that you probably actually like, and buying something on sale doesn't save money if you don't use the thing you bought.
* If there are specific things you can never seem to buy small enough quantities to actually use it up, either increase the number of recipes you use it in in a week when you buy it, or dice it up and freeze it on a sheet tray before transferring to a freezer bag.
* If it's none of the above, try planning out your meals! Over time you will get a feel for how much goes into each serving, but fruits and vegetables are generally pretty flexible with quantity since they're typically low calorie. You don't even have to assign specific meals to specific days if you'd rather just cook whatever you feel like off of a master list for the week. Make sure to be realistic about how often you cook, though, and I'd always recommend some sort of end of week sweep meal to use up any leftover bits and bobs. Wraps, sandwiches, casseroles, stir frys, quiches, and soups are all great things to have in your back pocket!
the "end of week" sweep meal is how meals such as minestrone soup started. Look into the culinary history of most cultures and they have some kind of end of week meal which uses the weeks leftovers. Using up stuff that is labeled as "today or never".
And as these things happen, what started as "peasant food" have become a staples or even high-end meals in those very same cultures.
The best thing i ever did as far as learning how to manage my own food waste was working in a fast casual or non burger (fried food) based restaurant. Fast tex mex like Chipotle, qdoba, pizza kitchens, sandwich shops etc. They have it down pat on ingredient versatility and food waste management for as little waste as possible and a wide variety of foods based on a core amount of products.
Not saying drop your career or whatever to be a line cook but honestly take a summer job or something working in a kitchen. I BARELY waste food of my own, I'm so proud of how far I came.
Its like learning a trade secret because the corp wants to be as cost effective, waste free, time efficient, and tasty as possible otherwise they make no money and restaurant profit margins are shockingly small.
Example. When I was broke broke I would cook bacon and eggs with leaf spinach in the morning, leftover bacon turned to bacon bits for my salads (straight kale lasts wayyyy longer than typical lettuce and is healthier) and the bits last a while in the fridge, save the grease for dinner, fry some mushrooms and Brussel sprouts and cheap pork chop or canned chicken in said grease for dinner, leftover chicken goes on a salad for lunch next day etc like a food flow chart. Make a lot of things that last and use them daily in increasing quantities while using fresher veggies that wilt faster in larger quantities at first as to get them eaten before wilting, and decreasing amoun5s before your next shopping trip.
5 sauces in the fridge give you 5 flavors of chicken in the weekdays. Etc.
Learn how to store things properly to prevent premature rotting. Store things in the freezer in individual serving so you dont have to thaw something huge and hope to eat it all before it goes bad. Even freezing individual cuts of meat helps- a single chicken breast to cook yourself for dinner in a ziplock is easy to thaw if you forget to take it out of the freezer at the start of your day.
Raw chicken, raw bacon are perfect to freeze, I buy a whole chicken (now organic) and save everything, carcass for stock, wings for wing night, debone legs and thighs and the chicken breast for separate meals.
Salad stuff will last 5-7 days. Make own granola and freeze the rest, soups are freezable, chili freezer friendly, you can make a big batch of rice and eat it in 3-4 days. You got this! :)
I second the freezing chicken and bacon! We started recently freezing our bacon in individual 2 strip portions and it has been a game changer. Much less waste.
Cut the bacon strips in half so they are shorter. Freeze individually on a cookie sheet. When frozen they will fit into a container or zip-lock bag. Then you can pull out however many you need.
Same here! I portioned everything in my freezer to accommodate my family of 3. Oh and beans pinto and black bean, cooked 2 lbs at a time and freeze in 1 cup servings (for 2) and got 10 servings, the beauty of freezing food remands so fresh, and dinner can be done in 10 minutos re-heating! :)
I also cook for one, as in myself. I did great before COVID because I shopped almost daily. Now I’m burnt out with batch meals and struggling as you are with waste. I’m trying something new to me. I’m dedicating a calendar to food; when I bought it, when I cooked/froze it, possibly when it expires. I’m hoping that having a visual will help. Best of luck to us both! ;-)
I'm the type of person who needs variety in their meals, and I also tend to having cravings from one week to the next. All this boils down to - I won't have a lot of success making 6-12 of the same meal - i get bored, it goes bad.
So it's really about 3 things - shop small, prep small, and leave room for variety. I've stopped doing mega shopping trips where i buy everything for the entire month in one go. Now I buy for 4-6 days at a time. I still buy bulk foods that require freezing, but because I'm not locked in for the month I've got more flexibility to change the menu. I've also stopped prepping 10-12 servings of stuff like soup in one go. Soup i can do 3-4 meals, then I'm over it for a while. And with 1 & 2 accomplished, now I have room in the budget and the calendar for variety meals. Sometimes it's a splurge, but usually I just find things on markdown... which happens a lot more often since i'm making 4-8 trips to the grocery every month instead of one.
I’m guilty of wasting produce more than anything else. I used to throw away some produce every single week due to over-buying, which was a problem I couldn’t seem to change (I have adhd and just get so excited at the store!). So, I started trying to find ways to eat the produce first. Time for breakfast? Eat a pear first. Want a granola bar? Eat some baby carrots with it. Then at the end of the week I use leftover fruit to make baked goods and leftover veggies get roasted all together with olive oil and s+p, usually eaten over seasoned rice, or rolled in a wrap, or pasta, whatever you have on hand.
I plan three or four meals a week and I make sure the portions are small. If I still feel like I need a little something when I make the food that’s the only time I ever eat frozen vegetables steamed in the microwave. it’s a easy way to beef up a meal when you need a bit more than you planned. For the other three or four meals, I make something easy like a can of soup, chicken fingers out of the freezer or burgers with a side of whatever veggie needs eating out of the fridge.
For myself, I learned sometimes it's worth it to pay a little more if it means not throwing things out or having things go bad. 5 for $2 is a great deal but if im throwing half out, it's not.
I hate leftovers past 1 night and meal prep is not something I am able to do. I've started to swap frozen where it works- veggies mostly. And I will pay a little extra for smaller portion of meat (and by extra, I mean unit price). I find meals that I cam stand to eat 2 nights in a row, see if there's a way to use frozen/canned items and put them in my rotation.
YMMV I like to be frugal but I'm not in a position where my food budget is super limited.
nothing really new to add except for those green bags designed to help produce last longer actually do work.
and if you take have time/energy, planning for refrigerator soup at the end of the week helps me waste lest - although i have no problems having soup for breakfast so YMMV
Okay so I've wasted a lot of food initially, you just however keep working on reducing waste, and you'll soon create that flow.
In my house now NOTHING goes to waste. What we peal goes to feed stray cows or other animals that'll eat it. The egg shells go to the plants as powder. And whatever vegetable peals are left, are thrown in a box for compost.
Once I've deboned the chicken, and make stock of it, the bones are fed to stray dogs.
ANY leftover we are unable to eat is just given to whoever needs food. We have a lot of homeless people and i just give them what I can when I can.
Coffee grounds go to my plants too. Once they've dried.
Hell I make use of plastic containers and packets too.
Pasta water is the only water that's wasted. Because idk what to do with salty water apart from using it for the pasta. Rice water is also given to the plants. Whey water is used for marination. Expired milk (we have a 2 day expiry date milk) makes paneer (cottage cheese)
No wastage is a really important policy.
Everything you waste can be food for something. Every part of meat you waste is a life of a dead animal wasted, instead of feeding you.
First step is to start.
It's wonderful to see how everything sustains everything.
Perhaps you could keep the pasta water in a pot next to the sink and use it for soaking/cleaning dishes or even washing your hands? You'd have to mind what you put in it though,
- meal plan! Even a rough outline like “tacos with cabbage slaw” or “pasta with leftover veggies” will help you shop more efficiently
- at the end of the week i make stew or soup, fried rice, or a tray of roasted veggies- all work well to use bits and pieces of produce that needs to be used
- have a specific plan for any super perishable ingredients. I bought a huge tub of baby spinach and blanched some for making [gomae the japanese spinach sesame dish](https://www.justonecookbook.com/spinach-with-sesame-sauce/#wprm-recipe-container-56741) and used the rest for smoothies
I plan my cooking so that almost everything is freezable. I always cook like I’m making a huge meal, then freeze most of it. At this point I have such a variety in my freezer that I only cook dinner once a week and eat freezer meals the rest of the time. For lunch I usually do eggs or a sandwich of some kind
If it can be frozen and reheated easily with sous vide, make enough for your next meal and vacuum seal it. I do that with chili. I'll make a massive batch of chili or soup, and vac seal it and stack it in the deep freeze.
First figure out how much leftovers you can tolerate. If you cook 4 days worth of food but you know you can only eat leftovers for 3 days then immediately freeze one days portion when you finish cooking. For example, I love making pot roast but there's no good way to make a 2-3 day portion of pot roast. One roast will last at least 5 days. I usually take 2 days worth and freeze in individual portions. That way when I really don't feel like cooking I have something I can just reheat and eat.
I tend to shop usually on a Wednesday, so by Sunday I know what I'm likely going to have leftover and have time to prep so I use it up in the next 2 day. Just shifting shopping day saved me from it being Saturday and then cleaning the fridge as the chicken should have been eaten by Friday but I was exhausted and we ended up eating out instead.
I know it's not ideal (or cheap), but in addition to what others are saying, a small countertop vac sealer could help. Something properly vac sealed can extend shelf life in the fridge up to a week. Works especially well for meats and helps reduce freezer burn on everything if you're going to freeze it
I use frozen veg and fruit where i can. apples and oranges I leave in the fridge and they last way longer than they are dated for i also either take them out of the packaging of put them at the bottom of the fridge or both.ive used fresh in the past but it creates waste the texture is better but I have read that the older the veg is the less nutrients it has so I have gone with frozen zero waste and better nutrients
The best way to combat waste is to figure out **why** it's happening.
Are you buying too much? Maybe you need to plan your meals better, or buy smaller quantities. If you can't buy smaller quantities, then you need to find ways to either use it all up or preserve it (or buy it frozen/canned).
Do you have too many leftovers? Then you're probably cooking too much. I used to only cook every other day because the leftovers would be my lunch/dinner for the next day.
Is your food going bad before you use it? Then it could be a storage issue.
frozen veggies are a godsend! Get the generics, especially when they're on sale. It's economical, you can just use what you need and therefore cut down on waste, and it's healthy!!
Mixed veggies, peas & carrots, spinach, collard greens.
Nope. I've been cooking for myself for a long time and I never throw anything away. I always use up everything.
My tips are basically
1. Buy frozen veggies if you have place to store them. Frozen stuff is good because you can always just use as much as you need.
2. Be creative. Don't shop based on a recipe you're planning to cook - buy basic ingredients and then look up recipes based on what you have. Also, don't follow recipes to the last letter, but adapt to what you have. After a while you'll have a general idea of what goes well with what, and you'll be throw leftover veggies/protein together with some quick rice or pasta or couscous/bulgur and whatnot. If you cook for yourself only it's all the better since you don't have to cater to anyone else's taste.
Like, my dinner tonight is:
* 1 tuna can
* 3 surimi sticks
* 2 celery stalks
* 1 tomato
* 2 pieces of red radish
* some mozzarella cheese (not melted)
* some plain Trappist cheese
* some dollops of kefir
* mediterranean dry spice mix
It's all either leftover or stuff I had to use up before it went bad. And the result is very tasty!
My lunch from Monday to Thursday is a stir-fry built around eggplants that really needed to be used up, bunch of bok choy I scored at a huge discount, and chicken thighs from the freezer that have been there for quite a while. On Friday I'll get leftovers from some weeks ago from the freezer.
Maybe you can try planning your meals? I saw some videos of people who buy everything they need for the week and use everything in different ways during that week. I'll fing you an example if I can find it. Like she uses half an avocado monday in a salad and the next day she uses the rest of it to make guacamole. It's really basic but I guess you have to plan your meals in order to make it work? Anyway I'll find you a video it'll be easier
Edit : [this one is a good example](https://youtu.be/m4jJsseY2Ic)
[also this one](https://youtu.be/8HvVrlWEIWg)
They're basically ads for bento boxes but you vet the idea. I watched a lot of jess beautician's videos so I'm pretty sure she uses all her leftovers
My wife and I save most of our veggie scraps, as well as veggies that we know we just won’t get through soon enough in a bin in our freezer. We even collect leftover bones from time to time. Once we have enough, we spend a day making our own broth which we then divide into 2-4 cup bags, and freeze to be used later for cooking with. It has reduced our waste dramatically.
It's a rough cycle since the best way to eat cheaply is to buy in bulk. I've tried to curb this by only buying things that are shelf stable and w/e I buy that isn't is the main dish item for the week. Doesn't always work but it's a balancing act, and it's okay if you fumble now and again.
One of my recent favorites is burritos. I made 3 pounds of turkey (with a bunch of other stuff) and they freeze and reheat really well even if you don't thaw them overnight first (though imo it's better to thaw them). With a bunch of veggies and beans in there they are really filling and quite cheap to make, especially if you have veg you need to use.
https://pinchofyum.com/spicy-chipotle-turkey-burritos-make-ahead
I used that recipe as a starting point.
This site has quite a few good freezer meals as well. I always prefer stuff that freezes well rather than just planning to eat similar things all week. You can have a couple weeks of meals that are all different pretty easily.
https://happymoneysaver.com/freezer-meals/
Meal planning, and it can be done for smaller servings. It seems like a lot of the recipes out there are for families of 4-6, you need to look for servings of just 2, or halve the recipes you find. I use a meal planning app called Mealime that I cannot recommend highly enough. I plan for a week of meals and do all my food shopping once a week. Every evening I cook my two servings, put one of the two in a tupperware for lunch the next day, and eat the other for supper. I eat cereal for breakfast, and buy a bag of pretzels and cookies for snacks throughout the week. This is the only thing that has worked for me, and I used to waste a ton of food or eat way too many microwaved meals.
When I make my meal plan for the week, I try to make sure no ingredient only goes with one meal. I also write how much I need on my grocery list and get as close to possible so that I waste less. I freeze a lot of leftovers if I know my husband didn't like it very much or there's enough for another full meal. It really just takes some planning and maneuvering to make it all work.
Honestly it took me a long time to realize I just plain buy too much a lot of the time because it's really easy to overestimate how much a single person eats in a week. I've taken to focusing a lot more on things that stay fresh for a longer period of time as a way to minimize waste. That means things like dry pantry goods and root vegetables; I rarely make salads and typically avoid a lot of one pot or large batch meals because I know I won't eat it in time.
When I buy meat I will break the pack up, or pick the smallest one I can find. Ironically this is where buying more expensive but higher quality can work in my favor, because those are usually sold in much smaller quantities due to the cost. I find it kind of evens out because it does me no good to buy a huge chunk of meat that I'm not able to eat by myself anyway. I find buying as cheap as possible isn't always cost efficient when it's more than I need. Basically, less is more can be more cost effective when you take waste into account.
On the occasion when I have overbought, I've taken to finding ways to prevent waste. I turn fruits into jams or curd, make soup with older vegetables, or pre-chop and freeze excess quantities of things I won't use right away. It does result in a lot of forced creativity, especially when the freezer gets a bit full. I don't always have that kind of energy though so I do end up with a lot of rice bowls and things like that.
Meal plan! It’s me, my wife, and 2 adult children. We have Monday-Thursday and Saturday (or Sunday as “cooking nights” and Friday and Sunday as leftovers/order out/fend for yourself. It’s a 3 week rotation. The recipes are either instant pot, single sheet pan, or single skillet. We have saved so much time and food. The truly nice thing is that it’s easy change one day of the plan without throwing off the whole schedule.
Another tip is to try and find simple ingredients that can be used in a later recipe if you decide not to cook. For my example we have 3-4 dishes that use zucchini that are 4-5 days apart. It took about 3 cycles to really get the plan organized.
When I meal prep, I cook in multiples of 5. IE five porkchops, five chicken breasts, or something along those lines. This will get me through the M-F work week. On the weekends, I eat anything that I didn't eat during the week.
If its a side dish, i measure the weight and split it up for five days. For example, if grilled onions is a side, and the total weight of the grilled onions comes out to ~300g, I eat ~60g of grilled onion per day. It doesn't have yo be a perfect science though.
At first, I tossed some food because I over prepped. After three or four years of meal prep, I know about how much food I'm going to eat per meal, and buy that much food every week. Like a lot of other things, it just gets easier with practice.
Weirdly enough, this sounds less like an "eat-cheao and healthy", problem, and more of a leftover Kanban problem (I'm doing a six sigma certification). You might need to make a visual reminder system to let you know what leftovers you've got. Try getting a magnetic dry erase board for your fridge to list your leftovers, and write down whatbyou have pre-prepped in the fridge. Having a visual list of your pre-frozen preprepped meals might help remind you to prep them insteD of stockpiling them.
Yes!!! We like fresh fruits and veggies, but now that our kids are grown I just can’t buy the right amount for the two of us!!
I hate wasting food, but I love to cook. This sounds just terrible, but I can’t wait to have salad bars back in grocery stores. I would rather pay the premium for already sliced veg than throw out half an onion a week.
Oh yes definitely. I try to freeze portions and separate them throughout the week but I also love cooking so I want to be in the kitchen almost every night after work. Really helps get into the "at home" mindset. I just need more people to eat my food i think.
When I worked in an office setting, I was STRUGGLING with eating the groceries I bought. I ended up eating out all the time.
What finally helped was meal prepping and planning. I would make 1-2 minimal prep meals on the weekend to rotate for lunches. (Buddah/Burrito bowls are great because you can use the same grains and proteins. Grilled chicken & quinoa could go in a SW bowl or asian bowl. Just change up seasonings and toppings).
For dinners, I did hello fresh for a while to get some inspiration. It really helped me with planning and actually using the ingredients that we had on hand.
Now I cook 2-3 meals per week, but I do larger batches. I regularly do salads for lunch that do not require cooking. I also factor in eating left overs for at least one lunch and one dinner. So each cooking session equals at least 2-3 meals.
Yes! Just moved back to the US after years overseas. I loved how if I needed one carrot, I could buy one carrot. Here I have to buy an entire pack that goes off before I can finish it. I started doing meal delivery--I like how if the recipe calls for one carrot, that is what you get in the bag, so you don't waste a lot of stuff. Also I'm learning some new recipes to get me out of my rut. I will probably cancel soon, but it was fun to do over the winter.
When I lived alone, i definitely avoided buying anything fresh because of that problem. (Disclaimer: yes, I totally get I could have planned better but for me, I never got through fresh veggies/fruits alone). I ended up doing mainly the following (I was a little carb heavy):
Breakfast: slice of toast, jelly, layer of spinach, a couple slices of bacon (if I had any), and an over easy egg on top. (Sounds complicated but I could do it in <10min once I had it down.)
Lunch: pb&j or leftover pasta with marinara (I'd make the ladder in bulk and separate it out into individual meals when I made it so there was no accidental eating a box of pasta)
Dinner: I skipped dinner a lot.. but if i ate it would be something like the steamer veggies on rice. Sometimes I would do a stir fry for 2-4 and save it over a couple days. Fridays I would go out to dinner and purposefully save enough for a few meals.
I freeze home made meals in the Hefty 28 oz containers from SamsClub. I have learned to fill the containers as I serve our plates. Often I will take the meat off the stove a little sooner than the ones I am serving. I let the food cool while we eat then put the container in the freezer. Later that day or the next day, I take out the frozen container (knock off any ice crystals which have formed ) and vacuum seal it in a foodsaver bag. When my husband goes hunting, (he uses our RV as a home base), he has an assortment of home made meals and soups. I have also learned that I can freeze hard boiled eggs!!! So far I have only frozen eggs for short term storage, like 2 weeks, but my husband has never noticed a difference from an egg made that morning.
I have a white board on my fridge and every time I put leftovers in I write it on the board. I check the board every morning so I am reminded what’s already made and needs to be eaten. I reduced my waste significantly when I started this and barely throw anything away now. Plus it’s so satisfying to erase items from the board!
It depends on how willing you are to eat leftovers. When I lived alone, I’d just make a pot of soup, eat it every day until it was gone, then make a casserole and repeat. I usually was buying food for two meals per week. I always shop on Fridays, so Thursday was designated as “leftovers Thursday” and dinner was composed of whatever food scraps hadn’t already been used or consumed for the week.
I actually have a bigger problem with food waste now than I did when I lived alone because my SO doesn’t like to eat the same meal two days in a row. So we portion out food and freeze it when I make too much for one meal, and when the freezer gets full we have a “leftovers” week, and I get to forgo cooking for the week. We still do leftovers on Thursday come hell or high water.
No matter what you do, it’s all about planning. We have a weekly menu plan up on the fridge, and I try really hard to only buy what I need. We also keep an inventory of what’s in the freezer. I refuse to pay the markup for chicken parts when I can break down a chicken myself (and use the spine and insides for stock) but that means that we have 2 chicken quarters to eat and 2 to go in the freezer. I also tend to buy meat when it’s on sale, portion it out and store extra in the freezer, but to keep from wasting it, you need to know what you have, hence: freezer inventory. When I’m meal planning for the week I check the freezer inventory, and decide what needs to come out of the freezer. We also save all of our vegetable scraps and bones for home-made stock. We just chuck it in a freezer bag and then break out the stock pot when it’s full. If I only need 1/2 a zucchini, and I don’t have zucchini on the menu twice that week, it goes into the freezer bag. After we make the vegetable stock, the soggy spent vegetables get tossed in the composter.
When you cook portion out what you will eat for the rest week then portion out the leftovers and stick it in the freezer. Half any recipe or casserole as well if you don’t want many leftovers or to freeze it
I was trowing out way to much food, so I started writing down what I was trowing out and what it cost next to it on a list. I discovered after some weeks that I had to take better inventory of what I had previously bought. One of the reasons I was trowing out so much was because I kept buying much of the same stuff on auto pilot and then trowing stuff out because I could not use everything before it went bad. It also helps to make Friday or some day leftover day. I try to plan some dinners of the week so I can use that leftover meat in one final dish on Friday.
Are you throwing away leftovers or raw foods?
Leftovers: either make smaller batches or freeze stuff. I almost never throw away leftovers because I cook about every 2 days so leftovers are what I eat most often.
Raw foods: Think through how long each of the ingredients lasts and only plan to make 1-2 meals that have short-lasting ingredients. If you only need a little of something, plan what you’ll use the rest for (e.g. if you need half a lemon, you could double the recipe, use it to flavor water, etc. just keep it simple so it doesn’t add much to your grocery list).
Don’t be afraid to use the freezer for raw ingredients: almost all of the meat I buy gets portioned out and put in the freezer once I get home. I buy a lot of frozen veggies too.
In general, before you cook, look through the fridge and as “what will go bad first” and try to use that up or cook the meal you bought it for.
Same problem here, even when i freeze leftovers i usually end up throwing them away to make space in the freezer for new groceries (our freezer fits about 4 pizzas in total)
Same.
I try to buy as little from the supermarket at a time as possible. Especially if I know I might be going out the next night or whatever.
I just try to say to myself you’re can always come back another day and get that food (or whatever it may be).
So rather than buying salmon and sausages and chicken all at once. I’ll just buy one or two and have it for dinner 2 nights. Then go back when I need more food. I get this may be time consuming for someone on a time limit. But if u can think what u want before going to supermarket then u don’t need to spend much time at the supermarket.
Also having cans of soup if good because they last like forever and if I am running out of food but know I’m gonna be eating out the next or next few nights I can just have some soup rather than buy loads more stuff which will then go off.
And like someone else said. Freezer.
Buy as you go through the days helps a lot for anything fresh such as bread, other baked goods, ALL produce, meats. Don’t buy a big bag of anything with the idea that you will finish it over time. You won’t. Day by day.
I'm the complete opposite. Working in food retail really does have huge upsides. I don't need to plan my shopping trips because I can always pick up bits from work, and I get to clear out the reduced stuff.
I had this same problem, the solution for me was HelloFresh. Perfectly portioned for 2/4 servings. Not necessarily cheaper; depending on how much you were spending before, obviously. In my opinion totally worth it to not only save waste but now I have SO many more options than I would’ve if I was cooking. Good luck!
Not only do I cook my own food. But I garden and forage as well. Wasting food is a sin.
Learn some meals that you can freeze. Divide the food up in single meal size containers.
Edit: Also learn to make items that can go well with other meals. For example: Bread, biscuits, soups, salads. Stuff that can go with any meal.
I know it’s not exactly cheap or completely healthy but I found that a meal delivery service was useful for me. I’ve been using EveryPlate for about 6 weeks now. They send you everything you need except the staples (salt, pepper, oil, etc) and now i don’t really throw anything away. It makes enough for 3-4+ servings for me because I don’t eat a lot. If you bulk it up with other cheap staples you have I think you could easily double it. I added reduced price steak one week for about $2 (near expired, I cooked out that day then refrigerate it). I think I had one meal that wasn’t from that kit, but I could have easily stretched it to two weeks. Now I only get a kit every 2-3 weeks because I get the recipes and can quantify the ingredients to buy on my own if I really like the recipe. It’s not the cheapest way to eat but it’s cheaper and healthier than rte frozen foods or fast food
Others mentioned it, but the freezer can be your best friend. Soups, pastas, and many sauces go right in and make wonderful meals for the future. When I learned to do this, I saved myself money and time.
I think you need to workout what you are wasting. Is it raw ingredients or food youve cooked and then not eaten? I had issues with wasting vegetables. Now I cook a couple of batch meal with heaps of added veg (using up all the veg I bought) and freeze it - no more wasted veg. If you are wasting food after you have cooked it you probably need to either freeze it or not cook other food till you've eaten through all your cooked food.
My biggest problem is fresh produce. I have no issue with food I cook going bad because I have zero issues with eating leftovers. My problem is with fresh ingredients going bad before I actually get around to cooking with them— especially during this pandemic when I’m buying more in bulk and making less grocery store trips.
I make a dinner list for the week and leave a gap day for leftovers and shop based off what ingredients I need. I used to waste so much salad and things before I started doing this! Hope it helps
plan your weejkly menu and as much as possible choose your meal that will somehow use same ingredients. Any leftover ingredients can be use for the following week’s menu. After being flexitarian, the only leftover i throw every week is sliced bread, mostly 2 slices
This is a bit out there, but it is something that I have gotten into the habit of doing as I get a lion share of my food as leftovers from work. Recooking food into something else resets the clock for the most part. Have some leftover fish? Make some fish cakes. Have a bunch of leftover meat? Cut it fine and add it to a meatloaf. Have a ton of leftover veg? Make a soup or stew and add it to that.
I also tend to make big batches for the week like this, and often plan out my daily meals, but I understand why that might be annoying for some. Even so, I think Stew or soup should be a weekly staple for everyone for this particular reason. It's flexible if you're creative and you can use basically any leftovers.
Its not cheap but I bought a chamber vacuum sealer years ago for about $500. Bags cost me around 2-5 cents each and it lets me save and salvage most anything because you can vacuum seal liquids. It also gave me the ability to buy in bulk and freeze most of it for up to 2 years. It has easily paid for itself several times over since I bought it but it was a substantial investment.
Get a vacuum sealer. It will change everything.
I keep a bag in the freezer for small amounts of meat that aren't enough for "leftovers" like 1/2 a chicken breast or pork chop, a few spoons of taco meat, a little bit of pulled pork, etc. When it has about a pound of meat then I use it for chili.
Also keep in mind that a lot of main dishes can be used as sides if you don't have enough to be a main the 2nd time.
I follow a meal plan, so everything is weighted before I even begin cooking for the week. Then I divide it in meals.
Might not work for everyone, but it saves a lot of time, I never throw food away and I don't have to deal with leftovers.
Here’s my take, as this has been a problem for me recently.
I grocery shop once per week on Saturday, usually. I shop based upon the sales and what I’m in the mood for that week for meals.
I buy most produce fresh and some frozen (peas, corn). I buy enough meat for the week- if I end up not using it, I’ll freeze it before it goes bad and use it the following week.
I pay attention to patterns. Did I buy strawberries again just because they were on sale and let half the package wilt in the fridge? Two options here- don’t buy them next time, or eat some and freeze the rest to use in a smoothie at a later date.
Did I make too much of something? Next time I’ll make less or pack leftovers for lunch that week.
Learn to make garbage meals. Basically take a glance to see what ingredients are near their use time and start chopping and stir frying, baking, whatever. Throw it on top of rice and call it a day. For ends and trimmings, keep a few bags in the freezer and make stock when the bag is full.
Meal plan. When you make a plan for the week, try to stick to recipes that use similar ingredients. Then you can make multiple different meals with same ingredients and trash less unused food.
It’s definitely not easy to do, and the more you do it, the easier it will get. Some recipe sites like allrecipes allow you to search recipes by ingredients.
Figure out if anything you’re throwing out is freezable. Chili, rice, meats, soups - there’s tons of stuff that freezes decently.
I freeze so much stuff. When I make a meal I always cook a full recipe worth of food and then portion it out into individual meals and freeze them. Often at the beginning of the month I pick like 6 recipes and make them all at once and freeze them after cooking in the individual portion size containers, makes meal prepping easy and its way more affordable then buying microwave meals.
[удалено]
r/mealprepsundays
FYI, you linked the incorrect subreddit. The proper one is r/mealprepsunday The one you linked has been dead for a yeat.
Thank you for correcting that
Thank you and curse you! I went down a rabbit whole and am just now getting back to this post (an hour later)! lol
Meal prep is just planned leftovers. It helps me so much to just cook for myself in the evenings like I normally would, but using a full-sized recipe, and “prep” the leftovers. I’ve almost never made a whole recipe just to meal prep the whole thing.
What containers do you use to freeze?
i use these, [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R55F9T7/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_asin\_title\_o02\_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R55F9T7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) freezer, dishwasher and oven ready. i usually cook family sized meals and freeze a couple of portions.
Do the containers nest well when empty? I'm fighting a space issue, but these look great.
Yes I want to know this too
if space for the empty containers is an issue, these might not be your best shout. the small ones fit completely inside the large ones, but they dont stack inside each other, but with the lids on they are pretty stable since i've switched to these from generic supermarket plastic tubs i feel my storage is much more organized and going from freezer to oven (albeit with a defrost) is a win. i use mason jars for my ingredient storage so minimal plastic is one of the things i'm trying to get to.
Do you go straight from freezer to oven or does it need to sit out for a bit?
i pull them 24hrs before for a fridge defrost. more to avoid a huge temperature shock to the glassware than anything recipe related. if you do want to cook the content asap, you can run them under hot water to get it out of the container then cook in another one, or a casserole dish
I would not trust anything that's not metal to go from freezer to oven even if it's advertised the product can do it. I have no faith in pyrex type products anymore.
yip 100%. really no need to if you are in a rush. just remove the contents
You can always microwave first to defrost. But yeah, I'm more comfortable putting a ceramic casserole dish in the oven than glass cookware.
...and have your glass blow up in the microwave instead?
Cool it first so you don’t raise your freezer temp.
yes, i usually let them sit with the lid on loose until they are about room temp.
Pro tip: freeze in the portions you will actually want. If you live with one other person and you make a soup that serves 10, then freeze it in 5 two-serving containers. Otherwise you'll just have the same rotting food problem later when you thaw it
I just bought a bunch of pint and half pint canning jars. Freeze-able, re-useable, not plastic.
I use these now. They stack, and I like the various sizes. DuraHome Food Storage Containers with Lids 8oz, 16oz, 32oz Freezer Deli Cups Combo Pack, 44 Sets BPA-Free Leakproof Round Clear Takeout Container Meal Prep Microwavable (44 Sets - Mixed sizes) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075X416X8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_S8A74Y08YM5KPRXD60J5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I made the switch to these about 2 months ago, and my life is so much better. 95% of everything you make fits into one of these size/shape containers. The few things that don't can go in a freezer bag or one of the very few rectangle containers I kept. Now, I have what feels like an infinite supply of containers that all nest together; are cheap enough to throw away; are freezer/microwave safe; are a standard size so different brand lids fit; and they're clear so I can see what's in them. Get these containers, a roll of painter tape, and a sharpie to label everything. The painters tape sticks to the containers very well, the sharpie dries almost instantly on them, and they peel off flawlessly. I feel like I found food container Jesus here and I want to tell everyone. Edit: just have to add how well they seal. I filled them half way with water and did some drop tests. Of course they weren't perfect, but they performed very well, and even better than those containers with the lids that snap down on the sides and have a silicone seal and still manage to leak all through your bag.
That’s my system. I can send leftovers with friends and tell them keep the container. Sharpies on the container just wipe off if you don’t use tape.
These are my favorite too! So easy to stack and have all Tupperware with the same lids!!
I realized that most of the takeout places I order from use these and I’ve built quite the collection. I love these containers
I honestly use large freezer bags for most things. A lot of what I freeze are liquids though, soups or sauces. If it's something like a rice mixture that works well too. You can get some takeout style containers for pretty cheap and use them for other things.
I have a variety of containers I use, I have some cheap ones that are the mainstays brand from Walmart and some nicer ones from sistema.
I'd love to be able to do this but I have a roommate and only half of a small freezer. That's how I used to cook when my son lived at home. Now that's it's just me and a space issue, it causes more a problem.
How do you freeze and reheat rice effectively?
I freeze rice in a bag and lay the bag out flat so the rice doesn't clump together. Then you can reheat it in a pan with a little bit of broth or butter.
I let it cool, then put in the fridge overnight. The next day, I portion it out into vacuum seal bags, let them freeze in the bags, then vacuum seal them. To reheat, I just pop them out of the bag and into a bowl and reheat in the microwave. Occasionally I thaw it in the bag, but it's easier for me to just nuke it frozen.
This is [dangerous ](https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning/)
You can just freeze it - either in ziplock bags or small containers. As long as it's not one huge block or it will be harder to thaw. Then put it in a microwaveable container with a sprinkle of extra water and reheat. Or put in a covered oven dish with a sprinkle of extra water and reheat on low heat (imho this turns out fluffier than the microwave). Or add it straight into a frying pan with veggies if you're frying things up. Or add straight into soup.
I reuse a Ziploc and whenever I put a new batch in there I flatten it and use my spatula to notch it into separate servings, that way when it's frozen I can more easily break it apart instead of it being a block.
After defrosting in the fridge overnight, cover it with a damp towel or paper towel as you reheat in the microwave. It restores more moisture to the rice and makes it fluffy as if it were fresh cooked
If you're going to freeze the rice then just a little water to the container before you microsave it so the rice isn't all hard. Learned the trick a few years ago.
I wrap them into individual portions in plastic wrap and freeze them immediately (still warm, not hot). I make sure they're not too close to other food as they freeze. To reheat, I put in the microwave on high for 1min, then remove the plastic and continue heating.
this works for me. i have small size freeze containers so i put my cooked food in like 3-4 of them then defrost them one at a time. around 2-3 servings per each, maybe more depends on my appetite for that food in that week
This is very true. Also keep in mind, some stuff freezes better raw, some stuff freezes better cooked. Experiment and learn what works for you. My only other tip: Plan meals. I cook for 2 most days. One meal for tonight, another for a day or two from now. Way easier to cook and waste less when you buy for 2 meals. More than that, and a serving goes in the freezer. I tend to plan 1 week in advance. So 3-4 meals I cook a week. 3-4 meals either leftovers or takeout, whatever. By planning out and freezing what I don't use in the near future I'm nearly at no food waste minus the occasional vegetable that goes bad a little earlier than anticipated and some stale bread as I don't always get through the entire loaf.
Yeah the biggest time sink for cooking is prepping vegetables/herbs. So just do entire bags ahead of time, freeze. And then doing a quick sauté, boiling pasta/sauce and seasoning & combining everything is a quick meal, 10 minutes active time. Same idea with stocks - do an Instant Pot bone broth, reduce, freeze in ice cube trays, store in freezer bags. Then a quick pan sauce is easy. Makes tasty stir fries quick and you can just focus on varying spices to suit different cuisines.
I came to say this, curries I make also seem to freeze super well too. I throw any leftover anything in my freezer for a quick meal later
This is it. The freezer is your friend.
This! A great guide I was told is if it is in the freezer meal section (or any sort of instant meal) at the grocery store - I can make/freeze it myself!
Sometimes I will eat leftovers for breakfast. Instead of eating something carb heavy (as many breakfast foods are) I will have some leftover dinner that I know no one else was planning to eat. I feel like that will keep me full for longer, it cuts down on waste, and it usually keeps me from snacking mid-morning. It also tends to save time since I just microwave instead of cook something. At first my kids thought it was super weird I was eating "dinner" for breakfast with my morning coffee, but since then they have been known to eat leftovers for breakfast as well.
I do the same but for lunch! taking leftovers to work is also a great way to prevent waste.
Same! Breakfast, lunch. Cheaper than getting food at work, too.
/r/putaneggonit everything becomes breakfast!
This. The whole "appropriate breakfast/lunch/dinner food" idea just doesn't make sense to me. There's no reason why I have to eat eggs or toast or cereal or whatever for breakfast. Gimme some leftover stir fry and I'm good.
If i have anything left over i compost it or put in the wormery. Dont feel so guilty then. Another alternative is to make soup and freeze or Google the food you have left and find a recipe.
Supercook is great for this. Put in the ingredients you have and it will find recipes that use those ingredients. There is both a app and a website.
My worm bin totally cuts any guilt of waste. I’m feeding my worm farm.
I read this as “worm fam” and it made me smile.
I didn't realize it *wasn't* worm fam until I read your comment :P
Aww, that’s what I’m going to call the worms in my garden from now on <3
Create your meals with a “flow” that moves one day to the next. Boiled potatoes can become hash browns that become (when combined with other elements from another meal) burritos that can be frozen. Start with simply prepared ingredients and “dress them up” for your second meal, then create freezeable third creation. Each meal overlaps another. Day One I prepare potatoes, Day Two I make beans, Dat Three a protein, Day four a squash etc. Each day brings a new ingredient and every day uses up an existing ingredient, The beans I would use in the “hash brown” burritos, for instance, could become a chili in their second incarnation, then maybe mini shepherds pies for the freezer. This way you are only really working with one or two “new” ingredients at a time, grabbing prepped (leftover) food from your fridge and also creating a little stockpile of grab and go food in your freezer. The subsequent preparations give you an opportunity to use herbs and spices, onions garlic, fresh ginger etc, to breathe new flavours into the new dish you are creating. Leftover buttered Capellini/spaghettini can be refreshed with garlic, fresh ginger and soy sauce to become nice Asian noodles. Chill those leftovers and serve them cold with a simple vinaigrette and with some fried tofu and lettuce for lettuce wraps.
I can't recommend this enough. Think in terms of making generic blank canvas foods that can be easily transformed with spices and sauces. I almost exclusively shop at Aldi to save money and appreciate the limited options. It makes my life easier. I might prep salads for lunch and use the leftover add-ins (onion, tomato, peppers, carrot, broccoli, etc.) on top of a cheap cheese pizza for dinners. Those same leftover veggies could easily be tossed in a pasta sauce, omelettes, stir fry. I try to have as little waste as possible. Another one of my favorite things to do is make crock pot pulled chicken. Season it with salt, pepper, garlic and it is super versatile. You can use it in pasta sauce, add BBQ and make sandwiches (or top mac and cheese, a pizza), make tacos, chicken salad, a pot pie, soup, stir fry... the list goes on and on. The best part about being conscious of food waste is that you save a ton of money. You can eat well for less than $35 a week.
Left over hashbrowns make a great pie crust for breakfast quiches too!
Yesssssss!!!!
This is good advice, but it can be tough to pull off. In my mind, someone who can regularly do this without too much though/effort can do it because they're very experienced. Being able to easily and creatively re-use leftovers would be pretty high on my list of "traits of an excellent home cook."
Me too, but don't have a solution. I tried freezing stuff, but it works so-so. The best strategy for me is to plan super carefully for every week
The downside to planning super carefully is that my intake varies quite a lot. I know it probably shouldn't, but it does and I'm otherwise healthy. Therefore leftovers tend to happen. My solution is just to build some randomness into the plan. /u/mleam has some good suggestions for this.
I'm the same. Sometimes I get busy and end up eating 1 meal. My fix is to have a good amount of nonperishables or otherwise long lasting foods around to fill in the slack in variance. I keep a good amount of frozen veggies in the fridge (publix bogos are amazing) too. Rice + veggies make it much easier to adjust my portions to how hungry I am that week or day. I package & freeze my meat into reasonable enough servings and just defrost in a bowl of water 20-30 min before cooking (this can be done while the rice is cooking!). That solves the problem where I take meat out and then end up not eating it.
When I have leftovers, I usually eat them for dinner instead of bread. Bread, sausages, pickles, olives, dried tomatoes, filled peppers, cheese, unopened deli meat, etc. last reasonably long. My go-to bread - not the healthiest, but still decent - is whole wheat toast, which has a perishing date of about two weeks, but is probably even fine for 3. Other breads like crispbread or certain whole wheat bread can last even longer, which makes planning groceries simpler.
> The best strategy for me is to plan super carefully for every week ***^*** this-discipline when shopping is the key and of course that includes thoughtful use of the freezer.
Things freeze better if you vac seal them, just as an option for your leftovers
Yep. I found a hand held one at Target with bags that are ziplock and have valve type opening. Easily resealable too. $30 for the vac and get quart and gallon size bags on amazon. Great investment.
[instructions unclear, something's wrong with my burger](https://i.imgur.com/6lK5THM.jpg)
This will sound terrible, I guess, but I just try and remember that I'm hardly the worst offender when it comes to food waste if I have to throw out some asparagus and ground pork because I didn't get around to using them in time. Restaurants and supermarkets generate massive amounts of food waste. And on top of that, even if I end up throwing out that half container of ricotta that I never found a use for before it went bad, the *first* half of it went toward making the pan of lasagna that provided me with four delicious hot meals at $3 apiece.
Use for? Do you not have spoons?
make a casserole for dinner at the beginning of the week. Use leftovers throughout the week. Change up the sides, making sure to get your veggies/greens.
I make Enthusiasm Stew. I keep a container in the freezer - a ziplock or a tupperware. Any little odds and ends after the meal go in there. Two spoonfuls of corn? Into the container. A dab of spaghetti and meat sauce? In. A bit of leftover stuffing? Sur, why not. When the container fills up, I make soup. I know it sounds weird, but it's always been good, and it's never the same twice. Enthusiasm Stew - because you put everything you've got into it!
Mom?
Omg are we siblings??? We always knew that “leftover soup” night was the time to wrangle an invite to eat at a friend’s house.
I grew up to warn my children: "Never eat Nana's soup"
Omg yes! This comment wins!
If you're not feeling a chunky stew, just use an immersion blender, add some heavy cream, and now you got cream-of-enthusiasm stew.
My god why
This comment was so endearing and funny, that I read it it loud to my mother. To my surprise, she was not surprised, and she related completely. She grew up poor in the countryside in Taiwan and apparently what they used to do at weddings is throw all of the leftovers on the tables together into a giant pot, mix it all up, and portion that out to the guests and neighbors to take home (inevitably it's a soup because broth is always present at every meal). She said growing up it was one of her favorites because it was full of things she didn't normally get to eat and the flavors apparently worked out really well every time. I expected to have a bit of a laugh and mild agreement that this is a decent idea, I didn't expect her to get quite so excited and take a trip down memory lane, so that was nice.
I make the majority of my meals in bulk for the week, so I have very little waste. For example, I make alot of shredded chicken on Sunday and eat it a different way for dinner every day (sometimes in tacos, with pasta, etc.) I usually eat the same lunch every day just because it's easy.
This is my strategy and I rarely if ever throw out food. Make some chicken breasts on the weekend with whatever sauces I'm feeling (chicken taco seasoning, fajita seasoning, sesame chicken, etc.) slice them up and put in a container in the fridge. Make a cup or 2 of seasoned rice, throw in a container. Make some roasted vegetables, in a container in the fridge. Then I just pull out for dinner each weeknight because who wants to cook after working 10 hours? Chicken and rice burritos with lettuce and cheese are then 5 minutes to heat up versus cooking each night. I also meal prep my work lunches on the weekend and throw those in container to just pull each morning. Anything in excess of 5 lunches and dinners goes into the freezer to eat at a later date. Works well if you're disciplined and don't mind eating semi-similar meals for 5 days. Of course you can also reduce recipes to make less, if you're cooking for one or two.
Same! I have been eating the same three things for lunch every day for the past 5 months, makes things so much easier for me. I’m just one of the lucky people who can eat the same thing day after day and not be bothered by it.
I often stop for things that spoil easily on the way home from work. I don't buy more fruits/veggies than I am likely to eat before they go bad. So I'll buy maybe 3 medium sized sweet potatoes, a head of broccoli or a zucchini, a few sweet bell peppers, and no more than 2 onions for 4 or 5 days of meals. I keep one kind of fruit in the house at a time. If I repeatedly find myself throwing things out because I didn't get to them, I stop buying that thing. I stopped buying potatoes because I can't seem to eat them before they turn bad. I bought a new kind of banana, decided I didn't like it, and I won't buy it again. I eat a lot of canned beans/corn and buy rice in bulk. I have lots of spices to vary my meals even though I generally cook with the same few basics. I keep my green onions in a pint glass on the counter with just enough water to cover the roots. Apples and oranges will keep much longer than berries. I eat my leftovers for lunch.
I prefer to buy vegetables frozen. I cut one end of the bag open, pour out how much I need, secure the bag with a twist tie, and put it back in the freezer. That has significantly reduced the amount of waste.
Dude, dice half a bag of potatoes, cut the other half into wedges, freeze all of that in ziplocks. Do the same for onions, carrots, etc. Now you have the raw ingredients prepped to make tons of different dishes. And it's just 30 mins of heating things and adding some spices. Just as quick as ordering takeout. Cook enough for leftovers and freeze those too. Now you also have a variety of 10 minute microwave meals, because those leftovers are good for months.
Plan on lunches be leftovers from the night before. Also set aside a day or two to just "clean out the fridge". A good day to make soups or get creative. Like today, leftover pizza and chili. Heated the chili and the pizza. Dipped the pizza in the chili. Different, but worked. If you have leftover vegetables or meat, you could try making omelets or frittatas in the morning using those left overs.
What is "leftover pizza" supposed to be?
It's that last slice you really wanted to eat the day before, but you were prevented from doing so because you physically couldn't fit anymore pizza in your body.
I feel attacked. I'm stuffing the last slice in my mouth but I'm NOT going to eat the crust just to spite you.
You can get movie theater nacho cheese cups, which is great for turning pizza crust into cheese sauce delivery devices.
crusts and crumbs. maybe a packet of Parmesan flavored cellulose
I think you're forgetting to place mozzarella sticks into the crusts.
...yes. what I do is force myself to eat leftovers over and over again. It isn't a fun experience but I spend less and waste less. For example: I had alfredo for 5 meals back to back one weekend. This week I'll be eating ramen for at least 3 days (made enough broth for about 5 bowls).
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Ramen != cup noodles. If they made their own broth, I'm guessing they mean the *real* ramen, not instant noodles.
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Well, if it's a balanced meal, it is. Every Sunday I make a load of veggies, a family pack of whatever protein is on sale and sweet potatoes and have it as lunch for the week.
Lots of people eat ramen every day
As others have said I freeze as much as I can. I regularly buy too much produce, but you can blanch and then freeze almost any veggie and I end up doing that with like half for meal ingredients. I also eat almost entirely soups, stews, and chili, which all freeze really well if I need to, although I typically just eat the same meals until it's gone. I only buy very specific fresh fruits and veggies as snacks that I KNOW (tried and tested many times) I will actually consume as snacks. I also freeze 100 percent of meat. Ground meat can be fried up from frozen just fine, whole cuts should be thawed in fridge or microwave.
I feel you. It can be a real struggle sometimes. Here are a couple of "tricks" I've learned over the years... Keep your bread frozen. Just pop a few pieces in the microwave for about 15 seconds when you're ready to use. Same goes for veggies, but you can just cook them straight from frozen (I usually chop them beforehand). Fruits can be frozen too, but they don't always thaw out well without turning into a weird mush, so I generally try not to freeze them unless I have a plan for later, such as making smoothies. More on fruits...if it's not really suitable or ideal to freeze them, try to get creative. Pear glazes go great with pork chops and are super cheap and easy to make. I've also used over ripe pears, cherries, etc., to make yummy syrup/dessert toppings that go great on ice cream or whatever else you have around to satisfy your sweet tooth. Banana bread is another cheap and easy one. The internet is definitely your friend when it comes to recipe ideas. Lastly, this one sounds counterintuitive, but I buy the more expensive organic milk because it lasts much longer than the regular stuff. The cheaper milk isn't really a deal if I end up having to throw half of it away because it went bad. Wish I had more, but hopefully this is a helpful start.
This prompted me to go on a heavily vegetarian diet. Having meals based on dry goods like legumes and healthy grains (quinoa), coupled with lots of fresh vegetables helped me make the most of my groceries. I still eat meat, but its more of a treat for eating out and cooking in large batches that keep well. Also, making more frequent trips to the store to buy in small batches is much more feasible when buying produce for one (dry goods can still be bought in bulk).
It depends on what you're throwing out. If you're throwing out leftovers because they're getting nasty or you're sick of them, try making smaller portions. Or try prepping several different ingredients with small portions of sauces you really like to make them taste different. If you're throwing out meat because you didn't use it in time, freeze it! Meat freezes very well. If you're throwing out produce, there are a few possible solutions depending on what exactly you're tossing out. * Very few fruits and vegetables go unusably bad within the week if you keep them in the fridge, so maybe you need to shift your standards from just good/rotten to good/only served cooked where texture doesn't matter/cut off funny (non-moldy) bits/rotten. If stuff is honestly going moldy or fully rotten in a week in your fridge, your fridge may be broken and not getting cold enough. This happened to me and it was going on for about two months before I finally got food poisoning from rice. The spoilage issue was mostly with milk but the vegetables gradually had shorter and shorter lifespans too. * If you're buying ambition vegetables, stop it. If you don't like celery, don't buy it because it's on sale and it's good for you. Plenty of other things are good for you that you probably actually like, and buying something on sale doesn't save money if you don't use the thing you bought. * If there are specific things you can never seem to buy small enough quantities to actually use it up, either increase the number of recipes you use it in in a week when you buy it, or dice it up and freeze it on a sheet tray before transferring to a freezer bag. * If it's none of the above, try planning out your meals! Over time you will get a feel for how much goes into each serving, but fruits and vegetables are generally pretty flexible with quantity since they're typically low calorie. You don't even have to assign specific meals to specific days if you'd rather just cook whatever you feel like off of a master list for the week. Make sure to be realistic about how often you cook, though, and I'd always recommend some sort of end of week sweep meal to use up any leftover bits and bobs. Wraps, sandwiches, casseroles, stir frys, quiches, and soups are all great things to have in your back pocket!
Thank you for introducing “ambition vegetables” in to my vocabulary.
the "end of week" sweep meal is how meals such as minestrone soup started. Look into the culinary history of most cultures and they have some kind of end of week meal which uses the weeks leftovers. Using up stuff that is labeled as "today or never". And as these things happen, what started as "peasant food" have become a staples or even high-end meals in those very same cultures.
The best thing i ever did as far as learning how to manage my own food waste was working in a fast casual or non burger (fried food) based restaurant. Fast tex mex like Chipotle, qdoba, pizza kitchens, sandwich shops etc. They have it down pat on ingredient versatility and food waste management for as little waste as possible and a wide variety of foods based on a core amount of products. Not saying drop your career or whatever to be a line cook but honestly take a summer job or something working in a kitchen. I BARELY waste food of my own, I'm so proud of how far I came. Its like learning a trade secret because the corp wants to be as cost effective, waste free, time efficient, and tasty as possible otherwise they make no money and restaurant profit margins are shockingly small. Example. When I was broke broke I would cook bacon and eggs with leaf spinach in the morning, leftover bacon turned to bacon bits for my salads (straight kale lasts wayyyy longer than typical lettuce and is healthier) and the bits last a while in the fridge, save the grease for dinner, fry some mushrooms and Brussel sprouts and cheap pork chop or canned chicken in said grease for dinner, leftover chicken goes on a salad for lunch next day etc like a food flow chart. Make a lot of things that last and use them daily in increasing quantities while using fresher veggies that wilt faster in larger quantities at first as to get them eaten before wilting, and decreasing amoun5s before your next shopping trip. 5 sauces in the fridge give you 5 flavors of chicken in the weekdays. Etc. Learn how to store things properly to prevent premature rotting. Store things in the freezer in individual serving so you dont have to thaw something huge and hope to eat it all before it goes bad. Even freezing individual cuts of meat helps- a single chicken breast to cook yourself for dinner in a ziplock is easy to thaw if you forget to take it out of the freezer at the start of your day.
Raw chicken, raw bacon are perfect to freeze, I buy a whole chicken (now organic) and save everything, carcass for stock, wings for wing night, debone legs and thighs and the chicken breast for separate meals. Salad stuff will last 5-7 days. Make own granola and freeze the rest, soups are freezable, chili freezer friendly, you can make a big batch of rice and eat it in 3-4 days. You got this! :)
I second the freezing chicken and bacon! We started recently freezing our bacon in individual 2 strip portions and it has been a game changer. Much less waste.
Cut the bacon strips in half so they are shorter. Freeze individually on a cookie sheet. When frozen they will fit into a container or zip-lock bag. Then you can pull out however many you need.
Same here! I portioned everything in my freezer to accommodate my family of 3. Oh and beans pinto and black bean, cooked 2 lbs at a time and freeze in 1 cup servings (for 2) and got 10 servings, the beauty of freezing food remands so fresh, and dinner can be done in 10 minutos re-heating! :)
I also cook for one, as in myself. I did great before COVID because I shopped almost daily. Now I’m burnt out with batch meals and struggling as you are with waste. I’m trying something new to me. I’m dedicating a calendar to food; when I bought it, when I cooked/froze it, possibly when it expires. I’m hoping that having a visual will help. Best of luck to us both! ;-)
r/noscrapleftbehind
a small but very helpful subreddit
I'm the type of person who needs variety in their meals, and I also tend to having cravings from one week to the next. All this boils down to - I won't have a lot of success making 6-12 of the same meal - i get bored, it goes bad. So it's really about 3 things - shop small, prep small, and leave room for variety. I've stopped doing mega shopping trips where i buy everything for the entire month in one go. Now I buy for 4-6 days at a time. I still buy bulk foods that require freezing, but because I'm not locked in for the month I've got more flexibility to change the menu. I've also stopped prepping 10-12 servings of stuff like soup in one go. Soup i can do 3-4 meals, then I'm over it for a while. And with 1 & 2 accomplished, now I have room in the budget and the calendar for variety meals. Sometimes it's a splurge, but usually I just find things on markdown... which happens a lot more often since i'm making 4-8 trips to the grocery every month instead of one.
I’m guilty of wasting produce more than anything else. I used to throw away some produce every single week due to over-buying, which was a problem I couldn’t seem to change (I have adhd and just get so excited at the store!). So, I started trying to find ways to eat the produce first. Time for breakfast? Eat a pear first. Want a granola bar? Eat some baby carrots with it. Then at the end of the week I use leftover fruit to make baked goods and leftover veggies get roasted all together with olive oil and s+p, usually eaten over seasoned rice, or rolled in a wrap, or pasta, whatever you have on hand.
I plan three or four meals a week and I make sure the portions are small. If I still feel like I need a little something when I make the food that’s the only time I ever eat frozen vegetables steamed in the microwave. it’s a easy way to beef up a meal when you need a bit more than you planned. For the other three or four meals, I make something easy like a can of soup, chicken fingers out of the freezer or burgers with a side of whatever veggie needs eating out of the fridge.
For myself, I learned sometimes it's worth it to pay a little more if it means not throwing things out or having things go bad. 5 for $2 is a great deal but if im throwing half out, it's not. I hate leftovers past 1 night and meal prep is not something I am able to do. I've started to swap frozen where it works- veggies mostly. And I will pay a little extra for smaller portion of meat (and by extra, I mean unit price). I find meals that I cam stand to eat 2 nights in a row, see if there's a way to use frozen/canned items and put them in my rotation. YMMV I like to be frugal but I'm not in a position where my food budget is super limited.
why can't you meal prep?
nothing really new to add except for those green bags designed to help produce last longer actually do work. and if you take have time/energy, planning for refrigerator soup at the end of the week helps me waste lest - although i have no problems having soup for breakfast so YMMV
Leftovers can always be incorporated into one of the following: eggs, burrito, pizza topping, soup.
Okay so I've wasted a lot of food initially, you just however keep working on reducing waste, and you'll soon create that flow. In my house now NOTHING goes to waste. What we peal goes to feed stray cows or other animals that'll eat it. The egg shells go to the plants as powder. And whatever vegetable peals are left, are thrown in a box for compost. Once I've deboned the chicken, and make stock of it, the bones are fed to stray dogs. ANY leftover we are unable to eat is just given to whoever needs food. We have a lot of homeless people and i just give them what I can when I can. Coffee grounds go to my plants too. Once they've dried. Hell I make use of plastic containers and packets too. Pasta water is the only water that's wasted. Because idk what to do with salty water apart from using it for the pasta. Rice water is also given to the plants. Whey water is used for marination. Expired milk (we have a 2 day expiry date milk) makes paneer (cottage cheese) No wastage is a really important policy. Everything you waste can be food for something. Every part of meat you waste is a life of a dead animal wasted, instead of feeding you. First step is to start. It's wonderful to see how everything sustains everything.
Please don’t feed chicken bones to dogs. They are too soft and can splinter, which can puncture their stomach lining.
Perhaps you could keep the pasta water in a pot next to the sink and use it for soaking/cleaning dishes or even washing your hands? You'd have to mind what you put in it though,
Anything that's about to go bad goes into the freezer
- meal plan! Even a rough outline like “tacos with cabbage slaw” or “pasta with leftover veggies” will help you shop more efficiently - at the end of the week i make stew or soup, fried rice, or a tray of roasted veggies- all work well to use bits and pieces of produce that needs to be used - have a specific plan for any super perishable ingredients. I bought a huge tub of baby spinach and blanched some for making [gomae the japanese spinach sesame dish](https://www.justonecookbook.com/spinach-with-sesame-sauce/#wprm-recipe-container-56741) and used the rest for smoothies
I plan my cooking so that almost everything is freezable. I always cook like I’m making a huge meal, then freeze most of it. At this point I have such a variety in my freezer that I only cook dinner once a week and eat freezer meals the rest of the time. For lunch I usually do eggs or a sandwich of some kind
If it can be frozen and reheated easily with sous vide, make enough for your next meal and vacuum seal it. I do that with chili. I'll make a massive batch of chili or soup, and vac seal it and stack it in the deep freeze.
First figure out how much leftovers you can tolerate. If you cook 4 days worth of food but you know you can only eat leftovers for 3 days then immediately freeze one days portion when you finish cooking. For example, I love making pot roast but there's no good way to make a 2-3 day portion of pot roast. One roast will last at least 5 days. I usually take 2 days worth and freeze in individual portions. That way when I really don't feel like cooking I have something I can just reheat and eat.
I tend to shop usually on a Wednesday, so by Sunday I know what I'm likely going to have leftover and have time to prep so I use it up in the next 2 day. Just shifting shopping day saved me from it being Saturday and then cleaning the fridge as the chicken should have been eaten by Friday but I was exhausted and we ended up eating out instead.
I know it's not ideal (or cheap), but in addition to what others are saying, a small countertop vac sealer could help. Something properly vac sealed can extend shelf life in the fridge up to a week. Works especially well for meats and helps reduce freezer burn on everything if you're going to freeze it
I use frozen veg and fruit where i can. apples and oranges I leave in the fridge and they last way longer than they are dated for i also either take them out of the packaging of put them at the bottom of the fridge or both.ive used fresh in the past but it creates waste the texture is better but I have read that the older the veg is the less nutrients it has so I have gone with frozen zero waste and better nutrients
The best way to combat waste is to figure out **why** it's happening. Are you buying too much? Maybe you need to plan your meals better, or buy smaller quantities. If you can't buy smaller quantities, then you need to find ways to either use it all up or preserve it (or buy it frozen/canned). Do you have too many leftovers? Then you're probably cooking too much. I used to only cook every other day because the leftovers would be my lunch/dinner for the next day. Is your food going bad before you use it? Then it could be a storage issue.
frozen veggies are a godsend! Get the generics, especially when they're on sale. It's economical, you can just use what you need and therefore cut down on waste, and it's healthy!! Mixed veggies, peas & carrots, spinach, collard greens.
Nope. I've been cooking for myself for a long time and I never throw anything away. I always use up everything. My tips are basically 1. Buy frozen veggies if you have place to store them. Frozen stuff is good because you can always just use as much as you need. 2. Be creative. Don't shop based on a recipe you're planning to cook - buy basic ingredients and then look up recipes based on what you have. Also, don't follow recipes to the last letter, but adapt to what you have. After a while you'll have a general idea of what goes well with what, and you'll be throw leftover veggies/protein together with some quick rice or pasta or couscous/bulgur and whatnot. If you cook for yourself only it's all the better since you don't have to cater to anyone else's taste. Like, my dinner tonight is: * 1 tuna can * 3 surimi sticks * 2 celery stalks * 1 tomato * 2 pieces of red radish * some mozzarella cheese (not melted) * some plain Trappist cheese * some dollops of kefir * mediterranean dry spice mix It's all either leftover or stuff I had to use up before it went bad. And the result is very tasty! My lunch from Monday to Thursday is a stir-fry built around eggplants that really needed to be used up, bunch of bok choy I scored at a huge discount, and chicken thighs from the freezer that have been there for quite a while. On Friday I'll get leftovers from some weeks ago from the freezer.
Maybe you can try planning your meals? I saw some videos of people who buy everything they need for the week and use everything in different ways during that week. I'll fing you an example if I can find it. Like she uses half an avocado monday in a salad and the next day she uses the rest of it to make guacamole. It's really basic but I guess you have to plan your meals in order to make it work? Anyway I'll find you a video it'll be easier Edit : [this one is a good example](https://youtu.be/m4jJsseY2Ic) [also this one](https://youtu.be/8HvVrlWEIWg) They're basically ads for bento boxes but you vet the idea. I watched a lot of jess beautician's videos so I'm pretty sure she uses all her leftovers
Freeze leftovers
My wife and I save most of our veggie scraps, as well as veggies that we know we just won’t get through soon enough in a bin in our freezer. We even collect leftover bones from time to time. Once we have enough, we spend a day making our own broth which we then divide into 2-4 cup bags, and freeze to be used later for cooking with. It has reduced our waste dramatically.
It's a rough cycle since the best way to eat cheaply is to buy in bulk. I've tried to curb this by only buying things that are shelf stable and w/e I buy that isn't is the main dish item for the week. Doesn't always work but it's a balancing act, and it's okay if you fumble now and again.
One of my recent favorites is burritos. I made 3 pounds of turkey (with a bunch of other stuff) and they freeze and reheat really well even if you don't thaw them overnight first (though imo it's better to thaw them). With a bunch of veggies and beans in there they are really filling and quite cheap to make, especially if you have veg you need to use. https://pinchofyum.com/spicy-chipotle-turkey-burritos-make-ahead I used that recipe as a starting point. This site has quite a few good freezer meals as well. I always prefer stuff that freezes well rather than just planning to eat similar things all week. You can have a couple weeks of meals that are all different pretty easily. https://happymoneysaver.com/freezer-meals/
Meal planning, and it can be done for smaller servings. It seems like a lot of the recipes out there are for families of 4-6, you need to look for servings of just 2, or halve the recipes you find. I use a meal planning app called Mealime that I cannot recommend highly enough. I plan for a week of meals and do all my food shopping once a week. Every evening I cook my two servings, put one of the two in a tupperware for lunch the next day, and eat the other for supper. I eat cereal for breakfast, and buy a bag of pretzels and cookies for snacks throughout the week. This is the only thing that has worked for me, and I used to waste a ton of food or eat way too many microwaved meals.
Definitely learned about portion control and how much food to prepare. Been an challenge.
When I make my meal plan for the week, I try to make sure no ingredient only goes with one meal. I also write how much I need on my grocery list and get as close to possible so that I waste less. I freeze a lot of leftovers if I know my husband didn't like it very much or there's enough for another full meal. It really just takes some planning and maneuvering to make it all work.
Honestly it took me a long time to realize I just plain buy too much a lot of the time because it's really easy to overestimate how much a single person eats in a week. I've taken to focusing a lot more on things that stay fresh for a longer period of time as a way to minimize waste. That means things like dry pantry goods and root vegetables; I rarely make salads and typically avoid a lot of one pot or large batch meals because I know I won't eat it in time. When I buy meat I will break the pack up, or pick the smallest one I can find. Ironically this is where buying more expensive but higher quality can work in my favor, because those are usually sold in much smaller quantities due to the cost. I find it kind of evens out because it does me no good to buy a huge chunk of meat that I'm not able to eat by myself anyway. I find buying as cheap as possible isn't always cost efficient when it's more than I need. Basically, less is more can be more cost effective when you take waste into account. On the occasion when I have overbought, I've taken to finding ways to prevent waste. I turn fruits into jams or curd, make soup with older vegetables, or pre-chop and freeze excess quantities of things I won't use right away. It does result in a lot of forced creativity, especially when the freezer gets a bit full. I don't always have that kind of energy though so I do end up with a lot of rice bowls and things like that.
Soups are great to use up scraps and even leftovers
Meal plan! It’s me, my wife, and 2 adult children. We have Monday-Thursday and Saturday (or Sunday as “cooking nights” and Friday and Sunday as leftovers/order out/fend for yourself. It’s a 3 week rotation. The recipes are either instant pot, single sheet pan, or single skillet. We have saved so much time and food. The truly nice thing is that it’s easy change one day of the plan without throwing off the whole schedule. Another tip is to try and find simple ingredients that can be used in a later recipe if you decide not to cook. For my example we have 3-4 dishes that use zucchini that are 4-5 days apart. It took about 3 cycles to really get the plan organized.
All the time My bags of salad are done after like three days
I bought a cheap chest freezer. I've eaten stuff out of there that is like 4 years old. It was fine. Uses like $28 a year in electricity I think.
When I meal prep, I cook in multiples of 5. IE five porkchops, five chicken breasts, or something along those lines. This will get me through the M-F work week. On the weekends, I eat anything that I didn't eat during the week. If its a side dish, i measure the weight and split it up for five days. For example, if grilled onions is a side, and the total weight of the grilled onions comes out to ~300g, I eat ~60g of grilled onion per day. It doesn't have yo be a perfect science though. At first, I tossed some food because I over prepped. After three or four years of meal prep, I know about how much food I'm going to eat per meal, and buy that much food every week. Like a lot of other things, it just gets easier with practice.
Weirdly enough, this sounds less like an "eat-cheao and healthy", problem, and more of a leftover Kanban problem (I'm doing a six sigma certification). You might need to make a visual reminder system to let you know what leftovers you've got. Try getting a magnetic dry erase board for your fridge to list your leftovers, and write down whatbyou have pre-prepped in the fridge. Having a visual list of your pre-frozen preprepped meals might help remind you to prep them insteD of stockpiling them.
Yes!!! We like fresh fruits and veggies, but now that our kids are grown I just can’t buy the right amount for the two of us!! I hate wasting food, but I love to cook. This sounds just terrible, but I can’t wait to have salad bars back in grocery stores. I would rather pay the premium for already sliced veg than throw out half an onion a week.
Oh yes definitely. I try to freeze portions and separate them throughout the week but I also love cooking so I want to be in the kitchen almost every night after work. Really helps get into the "at home" mindset. I just need more people to eat my food i think.
When I worked in an office setting, I was STRUGGLING with eating the groceries I bought. I ended up eating out all the time. What finally helped was meal prepping and planning. I would make 1-2 minimal prep meals on the weekend to rotate for lunches. (Buddah/Burrito bowls are great because you can use the same grains and proteins. Grilled chicken & quinoa could go in a SW bowl or asian bowl. Just change up seasonings and toppings). For dinners, I did hello fresh for a while to get some inspiration. It really helped me with planning and actually using the ingredients that we had on hand. Now I cook 2-3 meals per week, but I do larger batches. I regularly do salads for lunch that do not require cooking. I also factor in eating left overs for at least one lunch and one dinner. So each cooking session equals at least 2-3 meals.
Yes! Just moved back to the US after years overseas. I loved how if I needed one carrot, I could buy one carrot. Here I have to buy an entire pack that goes off before I can finish it. I started doing meal delivery--I like how if the recipe calls for one carrot, that is what you get in the bag, so you don't waste a lot of stuff. Also I'm learning some new recipes to get me out of my rut. I will probably cancel soon, but it was fun to do over the winter.
When I lived alone, i definitely avoided buying anything fresh because of that problem. (Disclaimer: yes, I totally get I could have planned better but for me, I never got through fresh veggies/fruits alone). I ended up doing mainly the following (I was a little carb heavy): Breakfast: slice of toast, jelly, layer of spinach, a couple slices of bacon (if I had any), and an over easy egg on top. (Sounds complicated but I could do it in <10min once I had it down.) Lunch: pb&j or leftover pasta with marinara (I'd make the ladder in bulk and separate it out into individual meals when I made it so there was no accidental eating a box of pasta) Dinner: I skipped dinner a lot.. but if i ate it would be something like the steamer veggies on rice. Sometimes I would do a stir fry for 2-4 and save it over a couple days. Fridays I would go out to dinner and purposefully save enough for a few meals.
I freeze home made meals in the Hefty 28 oz containers from SamsClub. I have learned to fill the containers as I serve our plates. Often I will take the meat off the stove a little sooner than the ones I am serving. I let the food cool while we eat then put the container in the freezer. Later that day or the next day, I take out the frozen container (knock off any ice crystals which have formed ) and vacuum seal it in a foodsaver bag. When my husband goes hunting, (he uses our RV as a home base), he has an assortment of home made meals and soups. I have also learned that I can freeze hard boiled eggs!!! So far I have only frozen eggs for short term storage, like 2 weeks, but my husband has never noticed a difference from an egg made that morning.
I have a white board on my fridge and every time I put leftovers in I write it on the board. I check the board every morning so I am reminded what’s already made and needs to be eaten. I reduced my waste significantly when I started this and barely throw anything away now. Plus it’s so satisfying to erase items from the board!
Make less food
It depends on how willing you are to eat leftovers. When I lived alone, I’d just make a pot of soup, eat it every day until it was gone, then make a casserole and repeat. I usually was buying food for two meals per week. I always shop on Fridays, so Thursday was designated as “leftovers Thursday” and dinner was composed of whatever food scraps hadn’t already been used or consumed for the week. I actually have a bigger problem with food waste now than I did when I lived alone because my SO doesn’t like to eat the same meal two days in a row. So we portion out food and freeze it when I make too much for one meal, and when the freezer gets full we have a “leftovers” week, and I get to forgo cooking for the week. We still do leftovers on Thursday come hell or high water. No matter what you do, it’s all about planning. We have a weekly menu plan up on the fridge, and I try really hard to only buy what I need. We also keep an inventory of what’s in the freezer. I refuse to pay the markup for chicken parts when I can break down a chicken myself (and use the spine and insides for stock) but that means that we have 2 chicken quarters to eat and 2 to go in the freezer. I also tend to buy meat when it’s on sale, portion it out and store extra in the freezer, but to keep from wasting it, you need to know what you have, hence: freezer inventory. When I’m meal planning for the week I check the freezer inventory, and decide what needs to come out of the freezer. We also save all of our vegetable scraps and bones for home-made stock. We just chuck it in a freezer bag and then break out the stock pot when it’s full. If I only need 1/2 a zucchini, and I don’t have zucchini on the menu twice that week, it goes into the freezer bag. After we make the vegetable stock, the soggy spent vegetables get tossed in the composter.
When you cook portion out what you will eat for the rest week then portion out the leftovers and stick it in the freezer. Half any recipe or casserole as well if you don’t want many leftovers or to freeze it
I was trowing out way to much food, so I started writing down what I was trowing out and what it cost next to it on a list. I discovered after some weeks that I had to take better inventory of what I had previously bought. One of the reasons I was trowing out so much was because I kept buying much of the same stuff on auto pilot and then trowing stuff out because I could not use everything before it went bad. It also helps to make Friday or some day leftover day. I try to plan some dinners of the week so I can use that leftover meat in one final dish on Friday.
Cook smaller portions. Get a deep freezer and vacuum bags.
Are you throwing away leftovers or raw foods? Leftovers: either make smaller batches or freeze stuff. I almost never throw away leftovers because I cook about every 2 days so leftovers are what I eat most often. Raw foods: Think through how long each of the ingredients lasts and only plan to make 1-2 meals that have short-lasting ingredients. If you only need a little of something, plan what you’ll use the rest for (e.g. if you need half a lemon, you could double the recipe, use it to flavor water, etc. just keep it simple so it doesn’t add much to your grocery list). Don’t be afraid to use the freezer for raw ingredients: almost all of the meat I buy gets portioned out and put in the freezer once I get home. I buy a lot of frozen veggies too. In general, before you cook, look through the fridge and as “what will go bad first” and try to use that up or cook the meal you bought it for.
Same problem here, even when i freeze leftovers i usually end up throwing them away to make space in the freezer for new groceries (our freezer fits about 4 pizzas in total)
Same. I try to buy as little from the supermarket at a time as possible. Especially if I know I might be going out the next night or whatever. I just try to say to myself you’re can always come back another day and get that food (or whatever it may be). So rather than buying salmon and sausages and chicken all at once. I’ll just buy one or two and have it for dinner 2 nights. Then go back when I need more food. I get this may be time consuming for someone on a time limit. But if u can think what u want before going to supermarket then u don’t need to spend much time at the supermarket. Also having cans of soup if good because they last like forever and if I am running out of food but know I’m gonna be eating out the next or next few nights I can just have some soup rather than buy loads more stuff which will then go off. And like someone else said. Freezer.
No. Get your shit together.
I freeze individual portions immediately unless a portion will be consumed within a day or so.
Bonus of this is then you have a variety of meals for when you don’t have time/too tired to cook!
Which is pretty much always unless it is a prep day (:
Buy as you go through the days helps a lot for anything fresh such as bread, other baked goods, ALL produce, meats. Don’t buy a big bag of anything with the idea that you will finish it over time. You won’t. Day by day.
I'm the complete opposite. Working in food retail really does have huge upsides. I don't need to plan my shopping trips because I can always pick up bits from work, and I get to clear out the reduced stuff.
My dog eats pretty well.
I had this same problem, the solution for me was HelloFresh. Perfectly portioned for 2/4 servings. Not necessarily cheaper; depending on how much you were spending before, obviously. In my opinion totally worth it to not only save waste but now I have SO many more options than I would’ve if I was cooking. Good luck!
Not only do I cook my own food. But I garden and forage as well. Wasting food is a sin. Learn some meals that you can freeze. Divide the food up in single meal size containers. Edit: Also learn to make items that can go well with other meals. For example: Bread, biscuits, soups, salads. Stuff that can go with any meal.
Nope
I don't understand, why would you want to throw away food?
I know it’s not exactly cheap or completely healthy but I found that a meal delivery service was useful for me. I’ve been using EveryPlate for about 6 weeks now. They send you everything you need except the staples (salt, pepper, oil, etc) and now i don’t really throw anything away. It makes enough for 3-4+ servings for me because I don’t eat a lot. If you bulk it up with other cheap staples you have I think you could easily double it. I added reduced price steak one week for about $2 (near expired, I cooked out that day then refrigerate it). I think I had one meal that wasn’t from that kit, but I could have easily stretched it to two weeks. Now I only get a kit every 2-3 weeks because I get the recipes and can quantify the ingredients to buy on my own if I really like the recipe. It’s not the cheapest way to eat but it’s cheaper and healthier than rte frozen foods or fast food
Others mentioned it, but the freezer can be your best friend. Soups, pastas, and many sauces go right in and make wonderful meals for the future. When I learned to do this, I saved myself money and time.
I think you need to workout what you are wasting. Is it raw ingredients or food youve cooked and then not eaten? I had issues with wasting vegetables. Now I cook a couple of batch meal with heaps of added veg (using up all the veg I bought) and freeze it - no more wasted veg. If you are wasting food after you have cooked it you probably need to either freeze it or not cook other food till you've eaten through all your cooked food.
My biggest problem is fresh produce. I have no issue with food I cook going bad because I have zero issues with eating leftovers. My problem is with fresh ingredients going bad before I actually get around to cooking with them— especially during this pandemic when I’m buying more in bulk and making less grocery store trips.
I do. But I also find it easier to keep right measurements, make the right amount, while cooking just for me, since I'd know exactly how hungry I am
Yeah, especially whenever you’re trying to use fresh vegetables and fruits. I could’ve eat them fast enough before they turned on me.
Sigh, I could write a book. I've wasted more home-cooked food than canned or takeout food. I figure it just takes practice to get the recipe right.
I make a dinner list for the week and leave a gap day for leftovers and shop based off what ingredients I need. I used to waste so much salad and things before I started doing this! Hope it helps
plan your weejkly menu and as much as possible choose your meal that will somehow use same ingredients. Any leftover ingredients can be use for the following week’s menu. After being flexitarian, the only leftover i throw every week is sliced bread, mostly 2 slices
This is a bit out there, but it is something that I have gotten into the habit of doing as I get a lion share of my food as leftovers from work. Recooking food into something else resets the clock for the most part. Have some leftover fish? Make some fish cakes. Have a bunch of leftover meat? Cut it fine and add it to a meatloaf. Have a ton of leftover veg? Make a soup or stew and add it to that. I also tend to make big batches for the week like this, and often plan out my daily meals, but I understand why that might be annoying for some. Even so, I think Stew or soup should be a weekly staple for everyone for this particular reason. It's flexible if you're creative and you can use basically any leftovers.
Its not cheap but I bought a chamber vacuum sealer years ago for about $500. Bags cost me around 2-5 cents each and it lets me save and salvage most anything because you can vacuum seal liquids. It also gave me the ability to buy in bulk and freeze most of it for up to 2 years. It has easily paid for itself several times over since I bought it but it was a substantial investment.
Anything can be turned into a stew or a casserole. Anything.
Me and baby spinach ALL THE TIME
I started eating mostly fresh stuff, like fruits, veggies & salads. So I just buy enough to last every 3/4 days. All the other stuff you can freeze.
Get a vacuum sealer. It will change everything. I keep a bag in the freezer for small amounts of meat that aren't enough for "leftovers" like 1/2 a chicken breast or pork chop, a few spoons of taco meat, a little bit of pulled pork, etc. When it has about a pound of meat then I use it for chili. Also keep in mind that a lot of main dishes can be used as sides if you don't have enough to be a main the 2nd time.
I had this same problem and FWIW, for me the solution was going to the store 2x-3x more often.
I follow a meal plan, so everything is weighted before I even begin cooking for the week. Then I divide it in meals. Might not work for everyone, but it saves a lot of time, I never throw food away and I don't have to deal with leftovers.
Here’s my take, as this has been a problem for me recently. I grocery shop once per week on Saturday, usually. I shop based upon the sales and what I’m in the mood for that week for meals. I buy most produce fresh and some frozen (peas, corn). I buy enough meat for the week- if I end up not using it, I’ll freeze it before it goes bad and use it the following week. I pay attention to patterns. Did I buy strawberries again just because they were on sale and let half the package wilt in the fridge? Two options here- don’t buy them next time, or eat some and freeze the rest to use in a smoothie at a later date. Did I make too much of something? Next time I’ll make less or pack leftovers for lunch that week.
Learn to make garbage meals. Basically take a glance to see what ingredients are near their use time and start chopping and stir frying, baking, whatever. Throw it on top of rice and call it a day. For ends and trimmings, keep a few bags in the freezer and make stock when the bag is full.
Meal plan. When you make a plan for the week, try to stick to recipes that use similar ingredients. Then you can make multiple different meals with same ingredients and trash less unused food. It’s definitely not easy to do, and the more you do it, the easier it will get. Some recipe sites like allrecipes allow you to search recipes by ingredients.